Steve Jobs admits Apple tried to buy AdMob, warns of porn on Android

During a question-and-answer session following Thursday's iPhone OS 4.0 preview, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs admitted that Apple tried to buy AdMob before Google "snatched" them, and also cited a pornography store for the Android operating system as a reason why unsigned apps are not allowed on the iPhone.

Jobs specifically said that his company "tried" to buy AdMob to no avail. That confirms numerous reports that claimed Apple and AdMob were in talks before Google acquired the mobile advertising firm for $750 million. Jobs characterized Google's acquisition by saying the search giant "snatched" AdMob away from Apple.

A recent report from The New York Times profiling the rivalry between Apple and Google said that the search engine willingly overpaid for AdMob just to keep the company away from Apple. Soon after the deal between Google and AdMob was struck, Apple responded by acquiring competing mobile ad firm Quattro Wireless.

That purchase of Quattro paved the way for Apple to announce iAd on Thursday, a new full-featured advertising service that allows interactive content within iPhone applications without launching a browser.

Also during Thursday's Q&A session, Jobs was asked if Apple has any intention of allowing unsigned applications to run in the iPhone OS. Currently, all third-party software must be approved by Apple for sale on the App Store.

Jobs responded to Ryan Block of gdgt by noting that there is a "porn store" for Google's Android mobile operating system, Apple's chief competitor in the mobile device and application space. "You can download it, your kids can download it," the CEO said. "That's a place we don't want to go, so we're not going to."

Other notes of interest from the Q&A session, which also featured senior vice presidents Scott Forstall, iPhone software, and Phil Schiller, worldwide product marketing:

Jobs said he does not believe that multitasking will lead to increased data usage. He said that streaming applications like Pandora just don't use that much in the way of data.

The iPad is still on track for an international launch in late April.

The iAds service will have some boundaries, and there will be some advertisements that will not be allowed.

Jobs answered succinctly when asked if Apple had changed its position on Adobe Flash or Java: "No."

Forstall said Apple believes that push notifications are the best way of handling applications for IM and Twitter.

When asked if widgets could be coming to the iPad, Jobs said that "anything is possible."

Features like multitasking are not available on earlier devices because the hardware simply couldn't support it. Older hardware will still get the upgrade, but it will be lacking features like multitasking, which was only announced for the iPhone 3GS (summer), third-gen iPod touch (summer), and iPad (this fall).

Are you guys taking small pieces of today's session and generating multiple little special interest stories? If so, how did Jobs look? Was the room clean, did it smell good? How about an article on the font used in the keynote.

Jobs answered succinctly when asked if Apple had changed its position on Adobe Flash or Java: "No."

What a question... I'm confidant that if Apple had reversed its policy they would have made it quite apparent. So the person asking it was either totally ignorant or was simply fishing for a way to write a 'fresh' news article detailing the fact that Apple doesn't provide support for FLASH.

Are you guys taking small pieces of today's session and generating multiple little special interest stories? If so, how did Jobs look? Was the room clean, did it smell good? How about an article on the font used in the keynote.

What a question... I'm confidant that if Apple had reversed its policy they would have made it quite apparent. So the person asking it was either totally ignorant or was simply fishing for a way to write a 'fresh' news article detailing the fact that Apple doesn't provide support for FLASH.

...and in other news... Gravity is STILL in FULL effect, film at 11.

Apple invariably gets a few "are you still beating your wife" questions from some of the snarkier websites, who are pretty much in it for the smirks.

Are you guys taking small pieces of today's session and generating multiple little special interest stories? If so, how did Jobs look? Was the room clean, did it smell good? How about an article on the font used in the keynote.

I see nothing wrong with running stories on specific content covered in the keynote... After all A LOT was covered and trying to hold meaningful forum discussions on specific topics in the 'main keynote article' isn't working very well. We can bash AI for lots of things but I for one am giving them some slack on this one...

Are you guys taking small pieces of today's session and generating multiple little special interest stories? If so, how did Jobs look? Was the room clean, did it smell good? How about an article on the font used in the keynote.

Give these guys a break. They live and die by pageview counts.

Frankly, it's better from a commenting standpoint to break out the main topics. It (hopefully) keeps the conversation more focused.

As we already know, some of the fanboys here start ranting about the lack of MacBook Pro upgrades in iPad threads. At least with multiple threads, the complainers are spread out thinner.

Features like multitasking are not available on earlier devices because the hardware simply couldn't support it. Older hardware will still get the upgrade, but it will be lacking features like multitasking, which was only announced for the iPhone 3GS.

Not true - the current generation iPod Touch will get multitasking, as will the iPad (though not until the fall for the iPad).

Why did Apple need to buy Quattro Wireless, they look like they had the idea for this mobile advertising platform before they bought this company? Why couldn't they create this on their own, rather than spend millions? In the same way, I also don't understand why Google need to buy Admob, surely Google have enough experience to create their own mobile ad platform